December 22, 2007

Pard Morrison, who says that the fusion of surface and medium in his paintings is a metaphor for the human condition, describes his work as a hypothetical conversation between Donald Judd and Agnes Martin. In the Denver Post, Kyle MacMillan says it's a defining show for Morrison, and reports that we should keep our eye on him. "With this smart, sophisticated body of work — 24 pieces in all — this major young talent has arrived. He has become, quite simply, one of the states' top abstract artists. While his basic working method remains the same — color pigment baked onto aluminum — Morrison, to his credit, has matured beyond earlier pieces that consisted primarily of long bands of color on groups of horizontal or vertical bars. Unlike those previous pieces, which were constraining and a bit forced in their way, these new offerings use the full spectrum of colors and an array of subsets thereof and incorporate a much richer array of compositional structures. Morrison served as an assistant to famed minimalist painter Agnes Martin and was significantly influenced by her in many ways, including his titles, such as 'Love Prayer' or 'You're So Lovely,' which are distractingly sentimental verging on cloying." Read more.